JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ONLINE MusicA JOURNAL OF THE MUSIC COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA ‘Jangling in symmetrical sounds’: Maurice Ravel as storyteller and poet aurice Ravel’s perception of language was defined by his métier. He thought EMILY KILPATRICK about words as a composer, understanding them in terms of their rhythms and Mresonances in the ear. He could recognise the swing of a perfectly balanced phrase, the slight changes of inflection that affect sense and emphasis, and the rhythm ■ Elder Conservatorium and melody inherent in spoken language. Ravel’s letters, his critical writings, his vocal of Music music and, most strikingly, his poetry, reveal his undeniable talent for literary expression. University of Adelaide He had a pronounced taste for onomatopoeia and seemed to delight in the dextrous South Australia 5005 juggling of rhymes and rhythms. As this paper explores, these qualities are particularly Australia apparent in the little song Noël des jouets (1905) and the choral Trois chansons pour chœur mixte sans accompagnement (1915) for which Ravel wrote his own texts, together Email: emily.kilpatrick with his collaboration with Colette on the opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges (1925). @adelaide.edu.au The common thread of fantasy and fairytale that runs through these three works suggests that through his expressive use of language Ravel was deliberately aligning his music with the traditions of storytelling, a genre defined by the sounds of the spoken word. Fairytales usually employ elegant and beautiful formal language that is direct, expressive and naturally musical, as typified in the memorable phrases‘Once upon a time…’ and ‘… happily ever after’. When we tell stories to children, we naturally adopt our most expressive voices, utilising a much broader range of pitches and inflections than in normal spoken www.jmro.org.au language. This is part of the reason why even children too young to understand all the words and imagery of fairytales love to be told them anyway: they respond instinctively to www.mca.org.au the assonances and cadences of the narrative. Ravel well understood these qualities, for he was renowned as storyteller-in-chief amongst the children of his acquaintance. In 1910 he composed his piano duet suite Ma mère l’Oye, directly inspired by the classic fairytales of Charles Perrault, the Comtesse d’Aulnoy and Mme Leprince de Beaumont. He wrote the suite for, and dedicated it to, Mimi and Jean Godebski, the children of his close friends Cipa and Ida Godebski. Ravel was a favourite babysitter for Mimi and Jean, as Mimi recalled in later life: There are few of my childhood memories in which Ravel does not find a place. Of all my parents’ friends I had a predilection for Ravel because he used to tell me stories that I loved. I used to climb on his knee and indefatigably he would begin, ‘Once upon a time…’ And it would be Laideronnette or La Belle et la Bête or, especially, the adventures of a poor mouse that he made up for me... (Quoted in Nichols 1987: 19) Ravel placed epigraphs from his chosen tales at the head of the three middle movements of Ma mère l’Oye, acknowledging that his movements were inspired not just by the general outline of their stories, but by specific moments, expressed in distinctive and elegant words and phrases. There is also a strong sense of the storytelling voice throughout the suite, particularly evident in the growls of the Beast and the falsetto cries of the Beauty, and in the melodic outline of the climactic phrase of ‘Petit Poucet’, which closely follows the spoken inflections of the final phrase of the accompanying epigraph (‘…les oiseaux étaient venus qui avaient tout mangé’ — ‘the birds had come and eaten them all up’) (Example 1). Example 1: ‘Petit Poucet’, bars 33–38. Ravel’s own first essay into the realm of poetry,Noël des jouets, depicts a nativity scene of small toys – a ‘varnished flock of sheep’ on wheels, ‘rabbit drummers’, and an enamel Virgin Mary who watches over a Child made of painted sugar. The ‘black dog Belzébuth’ is lurking around the stable, but the ‘beautiful unbreakable angels’ suspended by brass wire threads keep the peace as the mechanical animals lift up their voices and cry ‘Noël! Noël!’ Composed in the winter of 1914–15, the Trois chansons also deal with themes of fantasy and fairytale. Here, however, the traditional narratives are ironically distorted. The first of the songs offers a sardonic twist on the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. It tells the story of Nicolette, who sets off to gather flowers in the fields. She encounters an old wolf who enquires whether she is going to grandmother’s house. Fleeing, she meets a beautiful page who asks, ‘Nicolette, would you like a gentle friend?’ She ‘wisely’ turns away, although ‘her heart grieves’ to refuse him. The traditional third encounter is decisive: Nicolette comes across a white-haired lord, pot-bellied and smelly. ‘Hé là! Nicolette!’ he says, ‘Would you like all of this money?’ And Nicolette flies into his arms and never returns to her flowery field again. The second song tells of three beautiful birds from Paradise, who speak with human voices, conveying messages between sundered lovers in typically picturesque fairytale style. The singer asks the birds what messages they bring. The first offers an azure-coloured gaze and the second a kiss placed on a brow purer than snow. The third bird, when questioned, answers chillingly, ‘A beautiful heart, all crimson’. ‘Ah, I feel my own heart growing cold… Bear it with you also’, the singer replies. The song’s repeated refrain ‘Mon ami z-il est à la guerre’ [‘My love is at the war’] is a grim reminder that many fairytales came to bitter endings in 1914, while the three birds’ colours — azure, snow-white and blood-red — are those of the French flag. ‘Ronde’ speaks first in the voices of the old men and women, who warn the young boys and girls not to go to the woods of Ormonde as they will meet there all manner of fantastic creatures – ogres, satyrs, centaurs, wicked fairies, devils, imps and ‘ghouls coming from their Sabbath’. Finally, the young people sing that they will not go to the woods anymore, for the creatures are no longer there – ‘the foolish old people have frightened them all away’. In his 1938 homage entitled ‘Ravel poète’, the critic and musicologist René Dumesnil discussed the intrinsically musical nature of Ravel’s poetry. He wrote that: Ravel knew how to see and to release the essential […] and to express it he always found the right word, not only by its precise meaning, but still more by its sonority. (Dumesnil 1938: 126) Arthur Hoérée made a similar point in his 1925 study of Ravel’s vocal music, when he suggested that Ravel’s original syntax derived from ‘the clear and precise métier of the musician’ (Hoérée 1925: 51). In the four poems of Noël des jouets and the Trois chansons, Ravel’s natural concision is illuminated by his flawless juggling with the rhythms and resonances of the language, together with sparkling descriptions formed of unusual combinations of words and phrases. Perhaps most importantly, the sounds of his words are often as expressive as their meanings. Consider the following lines depicting the vigilant angels of Noël des jouets: ‘Et leur vol de clinquant vermeil / Qui cliquette en bruits symétriques… [‘And their glittering vermillion flight / Jangling in symmetrical sounds…’]. Ravel combines here an evocative description with very J angling in S Y mmetrical soun D S PAGE 2 individual onomatopoeia: the hard c and t consonants and light i and Ɛ vowels of ‘Qui cliquette’ really do sound ‘jangly’! Similarly, in the final line of the poem, the words used to describe the ‘thin bleats’ of the animals – ‘dont la voix grêle bêle’ – sound like the bleats themselves. It is almost tempting to sing the final ‘Noël! Noël!’ with a sheep-like stutter – ‘No-ë-ë-ë-ë-l!’ (Example 2). Example 2: Noël des jouets, bars 60–67. * * Click to hear the sound sample. J angling in S Y mmetrical soun D S PAGE 3 In ‘Ronde’, Ravel’s delight in the sounds and rhythms of his words is made particularly apparent. Ravel asked his friends for help in collecting his lists of fantastic beasts, but their ordering, assonances and cadences are his alone. Lines such as the tongue-twisting ‘Diables, diablots, diablotins’ and the galloping triplets of ‘Hamadryades, dryades, naïades, ménades, thyades’ are as satisfying and colourful to recite as to sing. Ravel also uses the expressive sonorities of the French language to sketch his characters and scenes. In ‘Ronde’, for example, the lines ‘Des satyresses, des ogresses et des babaïagas / Des centauresses et des diablesses, Goules sortant du sabbat…’ are full of hissing menace, the slower ‘ess’ sounds of the first words viciously snapped off in the final sharp ‘sortant’ and ‘sabbat’ (Example 3). Example 3: “Ronde” (bass only), bars 37–42. In the rigidly strophic ‘Nicolette’, the sounds of the words are an important element in the creation of individual characters. Ravel’s description of Nicolette’s wolf is particularly vivid: ‘Rencontra vieux loup grognant / Tout hérissé, l’œil brillant…’ Grognant [growling] has a naturally onomatopoeic quality and the ‘o’ [ã] and ‘ou’ [u] vowels in the couplet and the five rolled ‘r’s give the wolf his character as effectively as the description of his ‘bristling’ fur and his ‘glowing’ eyes. Similarly, there is an earthy repulsiveness in what Dumesnil called the ‘Rabelasian’ assonances (Dumesnil 1938: 126) used to describe the lord – ‘tors, laid, puant et ventru’ [‘twisted, ugly, smelly and pot-bellied’].